Fractures
by Alex Rose
Summary: After fifteen years of marriage, both Jon and Alanna are desperate for a way out. Jon rekindles old love, while Alanna makes use of old skills. The question is, will this mutual betrayal spell the end of everything they know? AU A/J
1. Prologue: The Darkness of History

_This is a take on the age-old 'what if Alanna had married Jon' scenario. What can I say? I felt in need of writing some angst, and this fic should be brimming with it. None of the characters are mine, of course, and I can't even take credit for the basic premise. The rest of it is all a product of my bizzare brain though. I hope you like it._

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**Prologue: The Darkness of History**

Alanna rolled over in the darkness and sighed softly. It had been almost fifteen years to the day since she had married her first love, Jonathan. For so many girls, that would have been perfection itself, even this many years on. Even for Alanna it might have been, but for two things: once upon a time she had been the first female knight in the Kingdom of Tortall, and she had given it all up to become the kingdom's Queen.

As she lay in the darkness, Alanna listened to the sound of Jon's breathing. It was a little heavier these days – not as soothing as it had been in those first months of their secret love. Somehow, things had never been as good as they had been then. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never knocked on Jon's door at all on her birthday so long ago, but she had wanted him, and he had wanted her. He had told her later that even throughout his infatuation with Delia, he had always wanted to see the real Alanna, laid bare. Not naked as they had been in the Black City, but naked as they had been on Alanna's birthday. The kind of naked where there were no secrets, no lies, nothing but the two of them together.

No, she couldn't regret that.

But after that it got complicated. There had been the proposal in the desert, the one which had come too soon. The proposal that had driven her into the arms of George, a very different kind of King. Jon too, had been driven to pursue Josaine, and for a long time it had seemed that their destinies had separated forever. Alanna sifted through her memories of that time, remembering how she had slowly come to believe that she would not ever be with Jon again. Was that something she could regret? Should she have said 'yes' that very first time? Or should they have stayed apart then?

These were all useless questions really. There was nothing she could do to change the facts. Well, one simple fact. King Jonathan was a very different man to Prince Jon, and when she returned from the Chitral Pass with the Dominion Jewel, she had some how taken up with Jon right where they had left off in the desert. The heady combination of absence from one another, the stress of a fragile kingdom, and the danger Roger put them all in had driven Jon and Alanna to bed together, and they couldn't stop. Even the beauty of the girl Thayet could not compete with the intensity of what it was like for Jon and Alanna to make love. They had been too young to realise that marriage was about so much more than sex, especially when you're married to the king.

It had been so many years now since it was like that. Even their youngest daughter, Lianne, had not been conceived in love and passion, but out of some strange duty to the kingdom. The bond of duty to the kingdom was the only bond Alanna felt like she shared with Jon these days. There could be no talk of an end to this marriage but that didn't mean she didn't want to get out. If only it were possible. But it wasn't about her, it was about the good of the kingdom. In the darkness, Alanna snorted slightly and rolled over again. She forced her eyes closed again and tried not to think about any of it any more. It wouldn't do her any good. This was the way things were, and nothing was going to change that.

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_Please **review** me. It makes it so much easier to skip out on studying to write when I know folk are reading!_


	2. Ch1: And the Walls Came ATumbling Down

_This fic is basically angst for my own pleasure, so I decided to jump right in with the drama, and then catch up with some of the explaining later... For those who asked, yes, George will appear later on, and this chapter is basically entirely from Thayet's view. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had fun writing this angst-fest._

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_**Chapter One: And the Walls Came A-Tumbling Down**

Thayet closed the book and leaned back in her chair. Today had been a good day. It had been fifteen years since she had opened the first ever general elementary school in Corus, and now she was educating nearly all of the children in the city under ten. It had been good. The only thing missing.... well, there were two things really.

Most of all she missed Buri. Her best friend and companion since long before coming to Tortall had finally found a man who could give as good as he got. He had been one of the teachers in the school they had established in the market quarter and Buri had fallen for him head over heels. Thayet couldn't do anything other than say 'yes' when Buri asked if she approved the match. Since their marriage a few months ago, life had been much quieter, too quiet. Buri and her husband were off in the south now, trying to establish schools in other cities. Buri wrote, but it wasn't the same. It left Thayet very lonely.

That was the other thing she had missed. Companionship. Yes, she felt it most acutely in Buri;'s absence, but it had always been there. So much had happened in the first few months of coming to Corus that she hadn't really been able to think much about men and marriage. She had thought for a while that the King himself had been interested in her, but any interest in her he might have had was clearly overwhelmed and swept away by the force of pure passion which existed between Jonathan and Alanna. Thayet had been happy to see them married, but then she had assumed that there would have been a man for her too by now.

The sound of the doorbell interrupted her reverie, making Thayet jump. Rapidly, she glanced at the parchment pinned to the wall which detailed all the appointments she had this week, but there was nothing she had forgotten. This caller was not a scheduled one.

Thayet eased herself out of her chair, reaching up to pull her hair down and pin it up again. The doorbell rang again. Clearly the caller was impatient. Muttering under her breath, Thayet hurried down the stairs to answer the door.

"Jonathan!" Thayet blinked, startled to see the man she had once had hopes of marrying standing outside in the drizzle which was clearly already permeating his clothes.

He smiled. "I'm sure you're supposed to address me as 'your majesty', these days."

Thayet blushed. "I'm sorry, your majesty. I quite forgot myself since your visit was so unexpected."

The King smiled. "You're forgiven. This is hardly a formal visit." He paused, and his smile faded. "I wasn't expecting to come and see you myself when I set out."

"Oh." Thayet wasn't sure what to say. Though Jon had made the effort to keep up their friendship over the years, he had never before turned up alone and unannounced. As King, it was usually difficult for Jon to go anywhere without a parade of bodyguards at the very least.

The silence stretched out for a long, awkward moment.

"Um, Thayet, do you mind if I come in? Only, I'm getting pretty wet out here," Jon said eventually, glancing up at the sky where the drizzle was beginning to turn more heavy.

Flustered, Thayet reached up to push invisible hairs away from her face and then nodded. "Of course, of course." She backed away from the doorway, holding the door open so that Jon could enter.

Without really thinking, she led the way upstairs to her rooms, passing by the door to the office and opening the door to the private sitting room she kept as part of her personal quarters. The room was dark, and she fumbled around on the table for the box of matches.

"Allow me," came Jon's deep tones, followed by a flash of blue light which caused the candles in the room to burst into flames.

"Thank you," Thayet said as she stopped searching and sank into a chair. "I really ought to get some of those never-ending-light globes, but they're so expensive I can't really justify them for my personal rooms when we don't have them in the school yet."

Jon sat down on the sofa moments after Thayet. "I'll have some sent down from the palace for you. After all, we should really be funding you more from the crown's purse given how important the work you're doing is." He spoke with rather flat tones, not looking at Thayet, but instead staring out of the window into the darkness of the night.

Thayet smiled uncertainly. "Well, thank you. That would be wonderful." Unconsciously, she pushed her shoes off with her feet and curled her legs up under her as she sat.

Jon didn't speak again. He just continued to look out of the window into the night. Thayet watched him. She knew he would speak when he was ready. There was, after all, a reason he had come to see her tonight, and it seemed that it was something that he couldn't talk to his wife about, or any of his friends at the palace. That was unusual for Jon. He was so close to many of his advisers, as they were close to him and Alanna after the years they had spent training as knights at the palace.

It must have been almost ten minutes that they sat there in silence. Then Jon spoke.

"I think I made a terrible mistake, Thayet. I... I should have never married Alanna." He turned away from the window and looked, for the first time, directly into Thayet's eyes. "I should have married you."

Thayet tensed, unable to look away. Why had he come here to tell her this? Why now, after all this time? What was the point? She made herself take a slow breath before she spoke. "What do you mean?" It was a lame response, but it was the only one she had.

"Our marriage... it's been over for years, Thayet. I can't remember the last time we... well... made love." He looked down, embarrassed by his honesty. "I mean, there's sex, but it's not love anymore. Not like it used to be."

Thayet blushed, equally as embarrassed. "But Jon, why are you coming to me? Surely Raoul... or Gary... they'd be better able to advise you?"

Jon shook his head. "They're too close to Alanna. She's as much friends with them as I am. I darn't tell them the truth."

"So you decided to tell me?" Thayet breathed, her body still stiff with nervous tension. "You thought the way to deal with this was to come to a teacher you hardly see, and confess to her that you should have married her fifteen years ago, and made her your Queen?"

Jon looked up. "I... I thought I'd come to a friend."

Thayet softened a little as his eyes met her. Suddenly she could see the profundity of his brokenness. What he had come to confess to her, it wasn't new. "How long?" she whispered, her tone automatically more gentle.

"I don't know... since Lianne was born at least... For so long after that, she couldn't bear to touch me. She couldn't even bring herself to hold Lianne. She was so distant..." Jon collapsed back against the back of the sofa, closing his eyes. "She never nursed her, you know. We had a wet nurse." His voice was so fragile now that it was barely audible.

"So she had the 'baby blues'? Lianne's nearly three, surely that would be better by now?" Thayet's attention was locked on the man in front of her, watching his every breath.

Jon shrugged, his eyes still closed. "It wasn't really like that before then. Jonathan and Thomas... we... made them in love. But Lianne... the more children we have the stronger the line, and the stronger the line the stronger the kingdom."

Thayet's eyes widened a little as she took in what he meant. Jon and Alanna had conceived a child for the good of the kingdom alone... It seemed to be so wrong somehow that any child should be born out of anything other than love. Was what Jon and Alanna had done any better than creating a child through an act of rape? As soon as she thought it, Thayet dismissed that. Of course it was not as bad as rape – Alanna _had_ consented.

Jon was still talking. "Now... now there's pressure. That speculation is building up again as to whether or not we will have another child. One old duke at court dared to ask me if Alanna was still fertile since we had yet to produce a fourth child." He opened his eyes and looked back at Thayet again. "I don't know if I can go through it all _again_."

Thayet nodded, swallowing back her own thoughts and emotions. "Of course. But there's no need for you to have another child if you don't want to."

Jon shook his head. "It's not that simple. Alanna... she gave up so much for me. It was so difficult for her when she gave up her knighthood to be a Queen. There was so much _talk_. Any hint at her being... inadequate as the Queen and I don't know what she'll do..."

There was a glisten to his eyes now that told Thayet more than any of Jon's words. Silently, she got to her feet and moved over to sit beside him on the sofa, turning a little in her seat to face him. Jon smiled weakly and absently rested his hand on her thigh. "It would have been simpler if I had married you. You... you should have been a queen, and Alanna a knight."

Thayet found her body tensing again when Jon touched her, but she forced herself to focus on his words and ignore the response of her body, which was wholly unhelpful. "You can't know that Jon. We might have made each other just as miserable as it seems you and Alanna have ended up." She forced herself to speak with conviction, denying the many nights she had spent in the early years speculating about the possibility that she might have made Jon happier than Alanna.

Jon looked at her. "You don't believe that. You can't believe that." He turned away and sighed. "I don't suppose it matters now. 'What's done is done and cannot be undone', as a famous man once said."

Gingerly, Thayet laid her own hand over his. "It will be alright, Jon. There will be a way." Not that she could see it right now, but there had to be, didn't there? Absently, she stroked his fingers with hers in a feeble gesture of reassurance.

Jon managed a smile. "I'm sure you're right. The gods haven't abandoned me yet. Or at least, the fact that Tortall is such a peaceful and prosperous kingdom seems to me to be a good sign that I'm not offending them." He reached up to brush away a black curl that had fallen out of the tight bun Thayet had pinned her hair into.

Thayet flinched. "Jon..." She shook her head slightly and then shrugged. "I'm sure the gods have their reasons for allowing all this."

Jon nodded. "Yes." He let out a heavy sigh. "Still, I suppose they are still limited by the mistakes I made all those years ago."

"Who says they were mistakes, Jon?" Thayet repeated, suddenly anxious for no reason she could pinpoint.

Jon met her eyes again. "Because somewhere, somehow, I stopped loving Alanna. But when I found myself on the doorstep tonight, I realised that I've never stopped loving you."

Thayet blinked. Then she swallowed. She forced herself to collect her thoughts enough to answer. "You never loved me, Jon. We've never been anything other than friends."

"But we could have been. There was a something... a spark, maybe, the first day we met, and it never went away. Why do you think I kept coming back here over the years? I can't keep away from you, Thayet. Even if Alanna forbade me from seeing you, I don't think I could keep away." Jon's hand slid a little further up Thayet's thigh as he spoke, and she shivered.

"Jon, that's not love. It's just the 'what if'. You're in love with the 'what if', not me..." She tried to subtly pull his hand back down her thigh, but he wasn't having it.

"I think about you." He said, his voice low and deep now. "Not just about the 'what if', but about you. Where you are, what you're doing..." His eyes darted away. "What you're like, underneath"

Thayet blushed furiously, trying to ignore the shiver that his words sent pulsing through her body. "You're married, Jon." It was a feeble response, but she had to try. No matter how much she might think about the same things Jon did, that didn't mean she was going to find out if reality matched up to the fantasy.

"My marriage is a sham, Thayet. It's not real any more." He was leaning closer now, his hand reaching for her waist.

Thayet pulled away. "No, Jon. No. This isn't going to help. We can't. I mean. What if... what if..." she trailed off.

Jon shrugged. "Isn't tonight all about the 'what if's?"

Thayet looked at him, and in some strange kind of pre-death moment, memories replayed through her mind in rapid succession. Meeting Jon. Flirting with Jon. Jon telling her he loved Alanna. Jon marrying Alanna. Jon visiting with Alanna. Jon visiting without Alanna. Through all of these memories, there was one sensation that she could not avoid. Attraction. After fifteen years, she had still not been able to look at another man. There had been plenty of them, but no one, not one of them had compared to the first real man she had ever met in Tortall.

Suddenly, she was aware of the room again and Jon was kissing her. As her thoughts caught up with her body, she realised that it wasn't just Jon kissing her. She was kissing Jon. The years of walls she had built up to hide away her feelings were tumbling away, and she knew what she had always denied. She was in love with him, and she had been since the day they met.

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_I'm working on the next chapter already, so **review **me to keep me inspired! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far!_


	3. Ch2: The Mirror Regrets

**Chapter Two: The Mirror Regrets  
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Alanna slammed the bedroom door behind her and collapsed back against it, fighting the tears of frustration. Dinner had been such an embarrassment. She had sat through the entire meal trying to make excuses for the absence of the King, when she herself had no idea where he was.

In fact, Jon had been absent more than usual lately. He always seemed to have credible excuses for his disappearances upon his return, they seemed to be growing increasingly spurious and Alanna couldn't help but grow more suspicious in equal measure. Not for the first time, Alanna felt a pang of pain for the loss of her adoptive father two years before. He had once been head of the spy network, and would have done anything to see his daughter happy. Myles had, in fact, been one of the few who continued to suggest that she might be making the wrong choice right up until the day before the wedding. Alanna had been worried he might not want to give her away, but he had been there and didn't say a word against her choice from that moment on.

Alanna pushed away from the door, pulling at the buttons and laces on her dress. She should have called for a maid to come and help her out of it, but she couldn't bear the idea of having to see another human being right now. As she hauled at the fabric, trying to get it off as quickly as possible, she heard at least two button threads snap, the buttons themselves skidding across the floor. With a last yank, the dress slid off her lithe form, and Alanna stepped out of it, leaving the silk and lace pooled on the floor where it had fallen.

In the flickering light of the fire, Alanna caught sight of her semi-naked form in the large mirror on the far wall. Staring at the strange image, Alanna walked closer, stopping when she was a few feet away. Far from the petite but muscular body she had had at eighteen, she just looked strangely skinny. The only place on her entire form that wasn't, was the sight pot belly left from her pregnancies. Alanna ran her hands over her stomach and sighed. She loved her children. She couldn't not love her children. But she had so many regrets about the choices she had made long before their birth.

Turning away from the mirror, Alanna walked over to a small table, where a decanter of liquor was set between two glasses. She poured a larger glass than she should have, and took a large gulp. Jon hated her drinking. He irritated her so much sometimes with his continual nagging about it, that Alanna often filled her glass twice as often just to annoy him. Either that, or upped and left, going to find Raoul. He was a much better drinking partner than Jon. Of course, when the word got out that the Queen was drinking with the Captain of the Kings Own, it was assumed they were sleeping together. Well, until Raoul had been caught in a rather intimate situation with a rather handsome new recruit. Raoul was drinking more than ever after that.

The second glass seemed to rally Alanna's spirits, and she got up off the bed where she'd been sitting. Before pouring her third, she pulled off the remains of the lady's clothes she had been wearing, and then opened Jon's wardrobe. She grabbed a shirt, and a pair of breeches. The shirt sleeves needed rolling up, as did the legs of the breeches, but the fit wasn't too bad. Going back to the mirror, Alanna half-smiled. This was better. It had been far too long since she'd worn something so comfortable.

In the early days, she'd trained along with the boys and worn shirts and breeches around the palace when she wasn't required at something formal. Then she'd found herself pregnant and everything changed. Jon banned her from the training yards. If he could have consigned her to bed for nine months he could have. It wasn't that Alanna had objected, either. She knew better than most of the dangers inherent in childbirth, and as her belly grew larger, so did her fear. She had no interest in risking her life, or her child's, in the training yards. Thom had been born without trouble, and Alanna would have returned to training, but she had found herself pregnant again almost immediately. Every time, there was a reason why she never went back. She was ill, a child was ill, they had been on some kind of diplomatic mission... the list went on. Now she didn't think she could go back. After such a long time, surely she'd have lost all her skills.

Stepping back from the mirror she stretched her head to one side and then the other. Rocking back on her heels, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, hardly noticing as her body shifted into a fighting stance. For a moment, she considered opening her eyes to see where the furniture was, but really, she knew, didn't she? Without even realising, Alanna found her muscles had started moving. Her limbs found their way into a familiar pattern dance and Alanna smiled. She hadn't lost it yet.

Her body twisted and turned faster and faster in what had, thanks to the wine she had consumed at dinner, become almost a blur. It felt so good. Idly Alanna thought that it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that it was better than sex.

Crunch.

Her joy at the freedom of movement came to abrupt stop as her right leg connected with the post of the bed. Alanna's left leg slipped from under her with the shock and she found herself sprawled on her back, eyes open to the ceiling. She swore coarsely and closed them again before rolling onto her side and easing her body up.

She considered standing, but it was less effort just to shuffle a few paces to where she could reach for the carafe of liquor and pour herself a large glass. It only took a few sips to dull the pain of the embarrassment, but she saw no reason to stop there.

It was three hours later when Jon returned to find his wife half naked and passed out at the foot of the bed. With a heavy sigh, he returned the empty carafe to the table and then reached down to pick up Alanna's dead weight. He carried her to the bed and laid her down, pulling the covers over her and then collapsing himself, wishing he was anywhere but there.

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_I hope you enjoyed this. I'm starting to get an idea of where this angst-fest is going to go, but keep me encouraged by **reviewing** please!_


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